Read All About It
'' Read All About It ''is the seventeenth book in the Middle School Experience series. It details Leah, Ellie, and Gail's adventures in the newspaper club's program, which they join temporarily so they can increase their chances of getting into the club full-time. Despite it starting out fun for the girls, they run into problems that threatens to ruin their friendship. When Lakewood's newspaper club begins seeking new writers for the next school year, Ellie and Gail quickly jump at the opportunity to express their talents. Leah also joins the club to improve her writing and is surprised and ecstatic when she is chosen as an editor for the paper. Leah wants to put her own sophisticated spin on ''Lakewood Weekly, ''but her changes aren't all well-received by her peers, especially Ellie and Gail. Ellie and Gail want to publish their writings on their own terms and make their voices heard, but will they be able to do that without throwing their own friend under the bus? Summary Though Ellie is an aspiring writer, she begins to develop writer's block due to not having any new ideas for her writing and because her language arts class is focusing more on standardized testing instead of creative writing. However, when Ellie's teacher informs her class that Lakewood's newspaper club is holding a program for the remainder of the school year to find potential writers for next year, Ellie jumps at the opportunity to join the program. After class, Ellie runs into Leah and Gail on the way to lunch and talks to them about the program. Gail, who had also learned about the program, is interested in joining, and Leah, who has no prior experience in creative writing, decides to join as well. Gail, who had joined the program last year and didn't make it into the club, warns her friends that the program can be difficult to get through, and though Ellie worries about how difficult the program will actually be, she remains optimistic that it will be a good experience for her. The following afternoon, the girls attend the first program meeting. There are many students at the meeting, such as Blake, Gail's boyfriend, and Clarissa, much to the girls' dismay. During the meeting, the students are introduced to Mrs. Lane, the no-nonsense head of the club, and Adriel, an attractive but geeky eighth grade student who is also the main editor of ''Lakewood Weekly, ''the school newspaper. Mrs. Lane details her very serious and high expectations of each student in the program and reveals that only fifteen students will make it into the club, which intimidates them. For the last half-hour of the meeting, Mrs. Lane has the students write short essays about themselves and their interest in being in the newspaper club. Ellie and Gail write diligent essays that they feel a bit insecure about, and Leah writes a subpar essay that she appears to have put no effort in. At the end of the meeting, the friends hand in their essays to Adriel, and on their way out the door, they see Clarissa flirting with him, although he appears uninterested. Despite the feelings of insecurity that Gail felt during the meeting, she still remains confident that she will get into the club this time. The girls attend the next program meeting the following week, where Mrs. Lane will assign roles to the students based on their writing skills. Leah regrets coming to this meeting because of her disinterest in writing and lack of skills and debates quitting. The students are divided into four groups based on their skills, each group with an eighth grade mentor. Gail, Ellie, Blake, and Clarissa are put into the writers' group, and Leah notices that she hasn't been assigned to any of the groups. However, she notices three other students in the same predicament, and Mrs. Lane informs them that they are part of the editors' group, with Adriel being their mentor. Leah is dismayed to learn that the editors' duty for the paper is to check the spelling, grammar, and cohesiveness, which she feels is a waste of time. However, Adriel reassures her that this role is going to help her improve her writing skills and that every person has to start at the bottom to achieve something, and Leah begins to feel a little better about her situation. After the meeting is over, Leah tells her friends about her new role, which they congratulate her for and joke about her being close to Adriel. Clarissa overhears the girls and makes a snide remark about Adriel only being nice to Leah because he feels sorry for her being untalented. Leah ignores Clarissa's taunts, which she knows are out of jealousy, and decides to focus on making the most of her new role. On Monday morning, Leah spends the period before homeroom in the school library editing a couple of articles for ''Lakewood Weekly, ''which would come out the following Thursday. While she refuses to edit a mean-spirited article by Clarissa, she edits the first edition of Gail's budding fashion and lifestyle advice column, which she enjoys. However, she feels like the advice part has bland questions, and decides to swap them for more interesting questions that Gail had also received for her column. On Thursday, ''Lakewood Weekly ''is published, and Gail is excited about her first advice column being published, especially after receiving compliments on it when she arrives to school. However, one of Gail's classmates, Laurel, storms up to Gail and accuses her of using her private family issues for personal gain. Laurel shows Gail her article, and Gail realizes that Leah, the editor of the paper, had changed the entire advice section of her column and the question that Laurel had submitted to her about her parents' divorce had been published. Though Gail tries to tell Laurel about the misunderstanding, Laurel storms off. When Gail confronts Leah about the situation, Leah appears unsympathetic about it, which angers Gail; however, she doesn't want to make Leah feel bad about her writing skills, so she tries to smooth everything over. After homeroom, Gail is confronted by the Popular Sensations, who are complaining about ''Lakewood Weekly ''not publishing Clarissa's gossip column and forcing her to work on another article. Clarissa informs Gail that she knows what Leah did to her article and threatens to tell Mrs. Lane and Adriel about Leah's actions if Gail doesn't. Gail tells Clarissa that she can handle the situation on her own, but she can't help but feel resentful towards Leah for ruining her column. Leah is beginning to enjoy her time in the program, mainly because of the friends she had made, including Adriel, who she has developed a crush on. Unfortunately, she still finds her role as an editor tedious and boring, and is annoyed when Gail refuses her offer to be a cowriter for her column. However, Leah finds some enjoyment in her role when she reviews one of Ellie's articles (which unbeknowst to her, is part of a novel Ellie is writing), which her friend had been hyping up. Unfortunately, Leah finds Ellie's article boring and decides to make changes to spruce it up. The following Thursday, Ellie finds out that Leah had edited her article and had morphed it from an inspiring story to shallow fluff that can't be taken seriously. Leah admits to Ellie that her articles are bland, and Ellie storms off, feeling upset that her friend ruined her hard work and ruined her confidence as a writer. She begins to believe that Leah doesn't deserve to be in the program anymore. The next newspaper club meeting comes around, but Gail and Ellie are not excited for it because it means that they will see Leah, whom they are not on good terms with because of their editing incidents with her. Blake suggests to the girls that they finally tell Leah how they feel, and they decide to speak to Leah after the meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting goes downhill quickly when Leah becomes defensive of her actions and insults Ellie and Gail's writing skills. Angered, the girls decide to take up the matters with Mrs. Lane and Adriel. The next morning, Leah sees Adriel in the hallway, but he is not excited to see her. Adriel takes Leah to Mrs. Lane, where he and the teacher confront her about her drastic editing changes, revealing that two students in the program had told them about her actions. Mrs. Lane decides to kick Leah out of the program, and Leah is outraged when she realizes that Gail and Ellie are behind this. Before homeroom, Leah has a very public spat with her friends, who justify their actions and call out Leah's. Leah accuses them of putting the newspaper club over their friendship with her before she storms off to the bathroom in tears. The following week, Leah falls into a depression and avoids everyone in the program, including the students whom she had been friendly with before. She mopes around school and at home, until her mother scolds her for being mean to her younger sister. When Kelly points out that Leah's miserable behavior is no better than Gail and Ellie's behavior, Leah realizes that she had acted childish about the situation and decides to make things right. The next day, while Leah attempts to redeem her relationships with her friends from the program, she has a run-in with Gail. Things are frosty between the girls at first, but to Leah's surprise, Gail apologizes for going to Mrs. Lane about their problems. The girls discuss their issues with each other and apologize for putting the program over their friendship. Though Leah is happy to have one of her friends back, she is still upset about her fractured relationships with Ellie and Adriel, who refuse to speak to her. Gail suggests that Leah write a letter for ''Lakewood Weekly ''apologizing to everyone in the program whom she had fallen out with over her actions. Leah is initially reluctant to this idea and has a hard time composing her thoughts onto paper, but she eventually writes a letter she is proud of and musters up the courage to present it to Adriel for publishing. Adriel is touched by Leah's gesture, and he accepts her apology and decides to publish her article in the paper, much to Clarissa's dismay. The article is published in ''Lakewood Weekly's ''last issue of the year, which is viewed by Mrs. Lane, who admires her newfound integrity, and Ellie, who rekindles her friendship with Leah after they talk everything out. Ellie informs Leah that Mrs. Lane had announced the students who had made it into the newspaper club at their last meeting, which includes herself, Gail, Blake, and two students from the editors' group. Ellie and Gail are overjoyed about achieving their goals, and Leah is grateful for the learning experiences the newspaper club brought to her life. Characters (in order of appearance) * Ellie Jackson * Gail Edwards * Leah Harrison * Blake Spinelli * Judy Lane * Adriel Aguilar * Clarissa Simpson *Alex Sanders *Arabella Wilson *Kelly Harrison Trivia * This book was rewritten four times. First edition, 2008. Fourth edition, 2019. * Originally, Maryann Chang was going to be in the story and have Gail's storyline, but the author changed it because it made more sense for Gail to be in the story because of her interest in writing. Category:Stories